BOOK II
I then explained to them as well as I could about the forty-eight States that make up the United States, making it plain that each State had its own government, but that there was also the Federal Government, which had authority everywhere. And this they understood readily enough, for the notion of a federation of communities was familiar to them. I told them briefly of how originally there were North and South, and of the Civil War, which was fought to establish the ascendancy of the Federal Government, and I made it plain that that ascendancy had grown greater to this day and that the State Governments had become more and more unimportant. And I did not hide from them that the choosing of parties and policies for the central assembly became less and less a thing over which ordinary citizens had any control at all, and that nowhere else in the world did the members so chosen receive less respect or less truly represent the people electing them. ‘Yet,’ I said, ‘the Americans are extremely attached to their Central Government, far more than they are to the governments of their own States.’
Lysis pondered for some moments on these things, and then said: ‘Was this a great civil war?’
‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘we Greeks have a high standard for such wars, when Greek meets Greek. But for barbarians it was a stern struggle.’
‘And terrible in its results,’ I said, ‘as you will agree if you are of my opinion that that Civil War was the most disastrous thing in the history of the Americans, if it fastened on their necks so great a mockery of popular government as is their central government.’
‘Assuredly they would not have fought for it if they had foreknown the future,’ he said.
‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘most of them consider that it was the turning point in their history, and they have made their chief hero of the statesman who saved the Union.’
‘Why?’ asked Phaelon.
‘Because being one has made them big and strong, or rather big and rich. Because the central government made commerce easier between men in different States, and thus assisted the great development of the country which has marked the years since the Civil War. In particular the victory secured the market of the defeated States for the manufacturers of the North. It is necessary to remember these things, for in America it is the manufacturers and their wives who decide what other people shall think, for among their other products they manufacture public opinion.’
‘Come, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘you forget your old friends the preachers.’
‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I find the preachers have great influence. Yet they only succeed in those matters where the manufacturers support them, though the union of the two is irresistible.’
‘What would happen,’ asked Lysis, ‘if the preachers wished one thing and the manufacturers another?’
‘That seldom happens,’ I said. ‘For the majority of preachers have never been known to wage a campaign against any activities that are thought desirable by the men of commerce, such as the prostitution of the soul which is called salesmanship, or the concentration upon business success which is called “making good.” But they attack those pleasures of ordinary men, like gambling and drinking, which the manufacturers will support them in attacking. For I verily believe they think it worse to be a drunkard than to sell one’s soul for gold. Nor is it difficult to understand how they have reached even such absurdities as this.’
‘We are listening,’ they said.
‘Why, they hold that some sins might unfit a man to serve the Gods, and in particular the God Progress, for they do not value all the gods equally, and to Bacchus they will not agree to pay any honours at all. Now, to those who think like that, a man will seem not wholly bad though the reasonable part of his soul be subordinated to a shameless desire for pelf, because such a man can play his part, and, indeed, be a leader, in that industrial life, walking calmly among the whirring wheels and running the machines whose buzz they consider a perpetual song of praise to Progress. But a drunkard cannot safely assist at these services.’
‘He might,’ said Agathon, ‘if he would not mind being caught up in the wheels and immolated as a sacrifice, but I can well believe he sees enough things going round as it is without going into factories to see more.’
‘So the manufacturers,’ I resumed, ‘were strongly in favour of this Civil War, and the preachers were with them. And these two parties make up the minds of millions of people.’
‘It must be fine fun, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘to make up so many minds like that.’
‘Indeed they find it so, yet they must do it with care, for in many matters they do not have the power of making the Americans think absolutely anything they please, but only the power of making one out of several opinions prevail. For they see the American soul like a ship with full-bellied sails, going to one of several harbours, according as the winds and currents drive it, and these manufacturers and these preachers can decide on the harbour and drive that ship before their mighty blasts and blowings, scattering away all contrary winds.’
At this Lysis looked very thoughtful, and then said slowly: ‘If they have indeed so much power it must be that there is some correspondence in the American soul, and that the manufacturers and the preachers are strong in the national life because the manufacturing part of the soul and the preaching part of the soul is strong inside the ordinary American. For so you have explained to me that the constitution of a State is reflected in the constitution of the souls of its citizens.’
‘My excellent Lysis,’ I said, ‘you have well stated a difficult truth, and much of the power of these people comes from the fact that an American thinks he ought to listen to a manufacturer because he himself, in his own soul, thinks highly of manufacturing, and will not listen to a philosopher, thinking meanly of philosophy. So also he admires a preacher, though such are seldom humble and many, indeed, go about bursting with presumption and acting as though they were wiser and better than all other men. But there is a further explanation of their power. These manufacturers and preachers are organized and have the use of money, so that they can pay men to write and repeat the same things over and over again, till the Americans, from seeing and hearing them so often, assume that they are true.’
Then Lysis said: ‘Has the strengthening of this power, Socrates, been the worst of the evils that resulted from the Civil War?’
‘Many and heavy have been the ills,’ said I, ‘resulting from that contest and the views dictated by the North.’
‘There are those,’ Agathon said, ‘who say that all that has happened would have happened without the Civil War.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but we cannot pretend to know that. And so I am content to look at what has taken place and to trace how events have helped each other without following such writers into the marshes and bogs of hypothetical imaginings. Now it seems to me that the Civil War gave the death stroke to their political life, for it made the central government supreme over the states at the same time as it made the interests of commerce predominant over the central government.’
‘Explain to us, Socrates,’ they said, as I was expecting they would.
‘Why,’ I said, ‘you can easily understand that the war strengthened the central government, giving it new duties and new powers, and fixing all men’s eyes upon it, and accustoming them to think its needs and acts of greater importance than the concerns of their own localities.’
‘Yes,’ they said.
‘And if that very war is in support of the government’s claim to authority and is waged successfully, must not the prestige of that government be established, and that of the smaller governments diminished?’
‘It must,’ they assented.
‘Now, do you think,’ I asked, ‘that an ordinary man will be able to understand or even to follow questions of policy, especially when he is far away from the place of government and is absorbed in the pursuit of his private gain?’
‘Assuredly not.’
‘And that in proportion as America has increased in size and wealth each citizen has less and less felt able to take part in the government, or even to weigh and judge of the opinions of the other citizens when there are so many of them. For most citizens know only a small part of their enormous country. And so most of them do not follow the questions of the public interest and act a part in political life, which has become in their country a trade like any other. And as all traders must keep the goodwill of the public, so especially must those who provide administration. But the need for goodwill is not a great check in any trade where competition is weak, and two concerns have a monopoly and can sell what article they like and call it administration. Furthermore, this war left strong feelings so that men stood firmly by their parties, and it kept floating in the air many fine names like “American” and “Republican,” and “Union,” in which the men of commerce who desired to run the government could dress themselves up. For it is difficult for such men themselves to invent names which arouse emotion, and yet they do not dare to call things by their true names and show themselves as they are. But the memories of the war made a grand cloak for their business purposes.’
‘Yes,’ said Lysis, ‘I am beginning to see how their power was riveted on the necks of the Americans, when they had all those powerful words at their disposal.’
‘At the very time,’ I said, ‘that they were making those railways of theirs and were determined to control the public treasury. And, moreover, does it not follow that power will belong to whoever can persuade the Americans that popular opinion is with him and that, the larger the number and the area, the greater the power of those who are rich and can pay for propaganda?’
‘What exactly is propaganda?’ said Lysis.
‘It is, with advertising, the chief curse of the Americans, and may, indeed, be described as political advertising. For never in the history of the world has there been so wonderful a field for the skilful persuader as are these modern democracies, where all the people can read and very few of them can think. All are secretly uncertain of themselves, and in America more so than elsewhere, and look to see what their neighbours are thinking and desire to be counted among the majority. For nothing is stronger in America than this desire to belong to the majority and to say “We think” or “We feel.” And it is natural for business men to be timid, for their business depends upon the good opinion of others, and so it is that business men very easily become hypocrites. I believe myself the American men do not mind dying since it means joining the great majority.’
‘And one ever growing greater,’ added Agathon.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but they will not enjoy Hades, where time is not money any more, and no one but Charon has any wealth, so that the most forward salesmanship will be in vain.’
‘Poor Americans,’ said Lysis, ‘they will feel very lost.’
‘They will understand giving a sop to Cerberus,’ said Agathon; ‘it will be like their own politics. And they will like the crowds.’
‘Come, my good friends,’ I said, ‘cease to tarry with the Americans in Hades, and let me resume my tale of their earthly misfortunes.’
‘Pray do so, Socrates,’ they said.
‘Then I will say,’ I resumed, ‘that the second great disaster of that war has been this: that by the mechanism of the Constitution (to use a phrase often in their mouths, by which they mean that the laws made for other times and conditions produce different and strange results to-day), the opinions and ideas of one part of the country become the laws that are to be obeyed by all the parts. For it is the people of the North spreading westward to the great rivers that have built up in the great agricultural plains the growing empire of the Middle West, of which we spoke earlier, where the preachers and manufacturers have most power of all, having secured the ear of the women. Except for an accident once or twice the same party has been in power ever since the war, and that is the party of the North and the manufacturers, and the South have hardly more voice in the central government than if they were frankly governed as subjects.’
‘What sort of people were these in the South?’ asked Lysis.
‘The best of them were the very best sort of barbarians,’ I replied, ‘and the nearest to civilization of all the Americans.’
‘But they are from Ethiopia, are they not?’ said Lysis, ‘for I have heard men whistling in the streets of Athens songs in which the singer praises the blackness of his lover’s or mother’s face and these songs are what men sing in these Southern States.’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘can you not guess the explanation, for indeed it is not difficult? These Southerners had black slaves. Indeed, the war was largely caused by that.’
‘How,’ said Lysis.
‘Why, among barbarians it is not natural that one man should serve another, for all are slaves by nature. And, in general all are slaves to one despot, as among the Persians. Now in America the northern barbarians were angry that the Southerners were served by Ethiopians, whom they declared to be in all respects the equals of the whites. And when they won the doubtful struggle, they wrote in their Constitution that that was so. For they believe they can change the nature of things by changing that Constitution of theirs. But, indeed, they have made much less difference than they think, and freed individuals rather than the race itself, and the chief part of the Ethiopians, and, as I believe, the happiest, are those serving in the fields and households of the South. For, if you do not pursue the life of reason as only the few can do, it is better to serve a man pursuing, even faintly, that life than to pass your days in the fever of petty trading. But these Northerners came from aristocratic countries where they had suffered the insolence of aristocrats, and did not understand rightly about personal dignity. For they are filled with pride against personal service, being full of self-assertion towards individuals and of slavishness towards public opinion. Whereas, rightly, a man should not think himself lowered by any useful service to a good man, supposing he should meet with one, but should feel it extreme degradation to hand over his soul to the keeping of the crowd. Or does it not seem so to you?’
‘Why, yes, Socrates,’ answered Agathon; ‘I can see these Northerners were the most unsuitable people possible to have a voice in the ordering of the South.’
‘However,’ I said, ‘it has happened now, and the Southerners were all rendered poor by the exhaustion of the struggle, so that sheer necessity has changed the character of southern life. But they still continue to show great understanding, for people who are not Greeks. They measure things by other standards than quantity, and they do not think meanly of leisure. But their glories they have left upon the field of battle.’
‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘and though they were able to prevent the North from dictating to them how they should live, they have been unable to do the great work they were needed to do. For nothing else could check the Middle West when that grew strong.’
‘I agree with you, Agathon,’ I said, ‘and now the standards of the manufacturers spread steadily through the whole country. That was the third disaster, and there still remains a fourth.’
‘Tell us, then,’ said Lysis, ‘about the fourth disaster which, as it seems, this unfortunate Civil War has caused.’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘did we not say that it had fixed the attention of everybody upon the central or federal government?’
‘We did.’
‘And made them cease to think of themselves as members of this state or that, but rather as Americans.’
‘Assuredly.’
‘But if the North had failed to impose unity, not the Southern States only but in all probability the Northern ones also would have been virtually independent of each other, and only joined to one another in some kind of League such as we Greeks are used to. North America would have resembled South America, but I think there would have been even more complete peace among the North American States than among those of South America.’
‘Certainly,’ Agathon said, ‘they live with the Canadians in great and striking amity. But they do not believe their condition would have been one to envy.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘probably all sorts of other misfortunes would have visited them. But they cannot really expect anything else, it being the nature of barbarians to incur disasters. We, however, are considering their actual ills to-day. Can they deny that they would have been saved from that glorification of strength which is a fatal temptation to great and powerful peoples, and never more than when they are unchecked by the presence of strong neighbours?’
‘They cannot deny it, Socrates,’ said Agathon.
‘As it is, must we not say the size of their political unit has done great harm to the American soul? For every number that is sufficiently large is to them a magical number, and the Americans come easily to believe that everything they think or do must be right because there are so many of them thinking or doing it. And most of all do they tend to think that they cannot have anything to learn from foreign nations because America is bigger.’
‘Are there really far more Americans than other people?’ asked Phaelon.
‘No,’ I said, ‘there are, in fact, far more Chinamen than there are Americans—but they say that there is another test of superiority besides size.’
‘And what is that?’ asked Phaelon.
‘Speed.’
‘How?’
‘The speed,’ I explained, ‘with which the size is attained. And they say they are greatly superior to the Chinese in speed of development, and this claim I believe to be true.’
Lysis nodded his head slowly from side to side and said: ‘Indeed, Socrates, the ills affecting the Americans seem to be many and heavy.’
‘But worse,’ I said, ‘is to come, unless they will change altogether and abandon their pride and listen meekly to the philosophers.’
‘How, Socrates?’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘they are doomed to frustration, for the opportunities of wealth are not infinite. And at first it was reasonable to encourage men of business that the resources of the land might be organized, but when that has been done there begins a struggle among the people for the largest share of the resources. And, in the end, that phase also passes and the game is played out and the different resources are controlled by different groups of men. No newcomers can fight against them, and the young men must be content to serve these groups, finding their reward in promotion and pay as though they were soldiers, as in a manner they are. And these promotions also grow rigid and mechanical in time. And great wealth is then only to be won in some strange and lucky way, and the battle for the market grows keener, and the cleverest men devote themselves to what they call progressive advertising, and the “Problem of Salesmanship.”’
‘What is progressive advertising?’ asked Lysis.
‘It is arousing the widest possible sense of want.’
‘What is the Problem of Salesmanship?’ asked Phaelon.
‘It is how best to mislead people about their own desires; persuading them to give their time and strength and money to obtain something they do not at all need, thus making them the instruments of your private gain.’
Phaelon at once demanded: ‘And do they kill the salesman who does this?’
‘By the pillars of Hercules, no! they use the gold of the public treasury to teach it in their schools, for they think that all men should learn to prey upon one another in this way, deceiving and doing harm to one another with their tongues.’
‘It seems to me, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘that these people spend their energies in many strange and doubtful ways.’
‘They do, indeed,’ I assented.
‘And they have so much energy,’ said Agathon.
‘It is stupendous,’ I said. ‘When I went to Niagara Falls an American said it made him sad that so much power was going to waste that might be made productive. And I replied that I felt in that manner about the vast energies of the people, for if they could be harnessed to the problems of philosophy much knowledge might result. For if we could have the energy pure without any of the American nature fixing its character, armed with so powerful a tool we could clear up many doubtful speculations. But he seemed to think I wanted everybody to busy themselves with serious questions, though the thoughts of such people would, of course, be useless, and he recommended me to take my proposition to an editor of a magazine, for he said that he “had a hunch philosophy might catch on, seeing the success of those other word-puzzle crazes.”’
‘It was lucky for him, Socrates,’ exclaimed Lysis ‘that you are so patient with fools. Did you reason with him?’
‘I attempted it,’ I replied. ‘But he said he had no time to reason and that if he once began he would never “make good.” And in that, at least, I agreed with him.’
‘And you were not angry with him at all, O excellent Socrates,’ exclaimed Lysis.
‘Pity,’ I answered, ‘and not anger, was what I felt, for I knew that he had not a free mind of his own, but was, like most things in that country, the result of what they proudly call “mass production manufacture.”’